Leica T-Type – First Look and Overview

PublishedApril 26, 2014

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Above you can view my video overview of the new Leica T-Type camera where I go over the camera, accessories, and features as well as an in-depth look at how the new touchscreen works on this camera. Below you can read some more of my thoughts on this camera and view sample images as well as download full-resolution sample images from this camera to further scrutinize.

Full-resolution sample images can be viewed and downloaded via my Flickr page here and RAW sample images will be available by Dropbox tomorrow.

General Thoughts

On the whole when rumors of this camera started surfacing, I was disappointed, though it was not un-expected. As leaked product images came to light I became even more concerned. As a purist, this camera is in no way similar to Leica’s heritage, and I don’t like this camera. With that out of the way, I will say that this is a great interchangeable lens compact system camera which is over-engineered in a number of respects. The Body feels extremely good in the hand and the 45 minutes of post CNC finishing are much appreciated especially with the hand grip. One other small critique is of the two multifunction dials on the top of the camera, they don’t have hard stops which makes it difficult to know when you are really changing things with them, not a big issue but something to take note of and something that you have to focus on when you are in the field. Unlike many Leica cameras, the rear screen on this camera is excellent (we will get to it as a touch screen later), images are displayed crisply and when zoomed in focus and camera shake are easily diagnosable. The screen is also highly visible moderately harsh daylight (conditions tested in).

This is good since the EVF isn’t great, at 2.4 million (I believe) it’s relatively up to date, however (and this may be personal prejudice against EVF’s but) the EVF still isn’t great in terms of responsiveness or detail though it is usable. While some may think that I am holding EVF’s to too high of a standard, I don’t believe I am. Maybe we have been spoiled by the responsiveness and clarity of optical viewfinders…(withering sarcasm)…but I will not accept EVF’s until they are as responsive and detailed as my eyes are physically capable of perceiving, and I have no doubt that in my life time we will get to this point…and I will still prefer optical viewfinders. There is just a difference between looking at a little TV screen and looking at the real world through either an SLR or a Rangefinder which physically connects and grounds you as the photographer in reality in a way that EVF’s will never be able to do. Diopter adjustments and GPS bring included in the articulating $595 Leica Visoflex EVF are nice touches which can help to justify the high price of this particular viewfinder over some viewfinders, like say for the Sony RX1r (which I am considering purchasing) that offer very basic features at a premium; but here you get some nice features along with basic EVF functionality which is sometimes required when the screen could potentially fail in harsh sunlight.

Image quality is pretty great out of this camera as you can see below, it is certainly a step up from the X2 and Leica X Vario (which I review here) and you can see my thoughts on the ISO range as well. I didn’t really futz around with the settings too much on the camera however there are two functionality based critiques I will offer. Firstly, there is the fact that (like the Leica X-Vario) you cannot just shoot RAW images on this camera and you are forced to choose between RAW + Fine or RAW + Super Fine (or whatever it says) which is annoying since this takes up extra-card space. The reason Leica has chosen to do this is because it is much easier to convert a JPEG to be viewable in playback on the back of the camera then it is to convert a RAW file to be viewable in playback. However, this is simply an issue of firmware and processing capability, with a nice 16GB of internal memory there is certainly space to temporarily store these files and I am sure the camera has the requisite processing capability. Consequently this is unacceptable laziness that I would have never expected from a Leica product. I know I am making a big deal out of a small thing, but again when you are paying top dollar you shouldn’t accept anything less then perfection. This issue could easily be fixed in firmware. Second, now let’s talk about the touchscreen.

I’m the kind of person that likes dials and buttons for everything, be it in my car or on my camera. I don’t like digital displays and touch screens, because, well … they will all eventually fail either the physical component or the computer driving it. This is why I prefer the manual nature of say a Hasselblad 503CW, or a Land Rover Defender 90. But I know that that is not the reality we live in and for things like this, it really doesn’t matter, since the components put into this camera are great and there will be absolutely no issues 99.999% of the time. Beyond that the touchscreen is very responsive and easy to use. Once you learn the menu system and how to set up and customize your camera home screen it is very enjoyable to use this feature in the field. I found that most of the time while I was shooting this camera, I could use my right hand thumb to access all of the rear menu’s and change settings while comfortably still holding the camera at shooting distance in front of me (when shooting it like a point and shoot). The novelty value of the touchscreen is high, and I really don’t think that it will wear off (especially not for anyone who is buying this camera). The touchscreen on this camera, along with the menu system design is the best touchscreen implementation in a high-end digital camera yet. It is daring and respectable that Leica chose to fully commit to this strategy, since there are no buttons on the camera. My PhaseOne IQ180 is a “touchscreen” camera but it still has 4 buttons which are used to navigate some parts of the camera. These buttons are very helpful, but dictate the way that the camera is set-up. It is very well implemented on the Leica T-Type. The only issue lies when browsing through the images on playback you have to be a bit careful with the way that you scroll through the images but this is something which can easily be fixed in future firmware since we can see that the touchscreen is pleasantly responsive when panning and zooming on an image.

Now onto the lenses. Focusing is improved on this camera over the Leica X-Vario, but it still isn’t insanely fast, but it is very usable. My biggest complaint about these lenses is the fact that they do not have aperture rings. Leica lenses are supposed to have aperture rings. plain and simple. This is one of the unique features which helps to make the user feel that they are part of the camera when shooting the Leica M system, there is just something about it and it’s an iconic feature that I think that Leica should be following through with in all of their cameras. The 18-56mm lens is basically the lens straight off of the Leica X-Vario which as I observe in the video is fine since this is an ILC camera, and if you need something faster you can swap it out for the prime if you choose to buy both lenses. The zoom ring still goes in the opposite direction to what most people are used to, like on my Nikon zoom lenses. Curiously, the 18-56mm Vario-Elmar-T has a butterfly lens hood unlike the hood available for the Leica X-Vario, don’t read into that too much I guess, because as I said in my X-Vario review, flaring was never an issue when reviewing the lens sans lenshood. Using M-lenses is a bit of a moot point in my opinion because of the crop factor. However, if you want to use them the functionality is there, personally I think this is the wrong way to make an argument that you are linked to your heritage since most M-users won’t want to use this camera, and most users of this camera (myself included) would only want to shoot it with autofocus lenses anyway. I look forward to seeing what optics Leica comes up with in the future for the Leica T-Type.

The new strap system is actually very nice and very sturdy, personally I would wait for a leather strap for the camera but the included rubber strap is pretty good on it’s own. Note, there is nothing proprietary about the Leica-provided tool for releasing the strap and a paperclip or really anything will do as long as you can put it in the hole and apply pressure.

On the whole the Leica T-Type is a very pleasing camera, and if you want an interchangeable lens system camera from Leica with automated features and good optics then this is the way for you to go.

Leica 23mm f/2.0 Summicron-T

Close Focus Distance

Leica T-Type with 23mm Summicron-T – 1/320 – f/2.8 – ISO 400

The Leica 23mm f/2.0 Summicron-T is a welcome addition to this system. The lenses Launched with the Leica T-Type mirror the focal lengths available on the Leica X2 and Leica X-Vario. However, with the case of the 23mm lens (a 35mm equivalent on full-frame) the lens has received an ASPH make-over while also becoming an f/2.0 versus the relatively slow (only in the world of Leica) f/2.8 Elmarit lens on Leica X2. This lens performs very well, however in harsh sunlight you will see some chromatic aberrations. Also, there will be green / cyan halo’s in some situations (particularly with strong highlights) in the bokeh of images. All of these issues are correctable with the chromatic aberration correction tools in either Photoshop ACR or Lightroom 5 (included with this camera).

There is one curious thing to note about this 23mm lens. While the lens is rated at f/2.0, when it is at its minimum focusing distance (~0.3m) the lens is an f/2.8 lens, backing up a little bit, the lens will become an f/2.5 and then an f/2.2 lens and then finally an f/2.0 lens. This is a little bit deceptive and something that users should take note of. This is not anything particularly unique to this lens, other lenses like the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 G macro lens suffers from a similar difficulty which is something that you must be aware of when shooting. Now, with this particular lens, this is not an issue since its already an ultra-fast f/2.0 lens but it is something that you should be aware of.

This lens is being lauded as being a competitor with Leica’s 50mm f/2.0 APO-Summicron lens, without performing any scientific tests, I can say that this lens is very sharp, with nice detail resolution and a fast aperture. However, I will leave it to the experts to conclude whether this lens is in the same class as the Leica M lens.

ISO Series

The Leica T-Type offers an improved ISO range over earlier German made Leica CMOS APS-C offerings with results being very good up to ISO 3200. ISO 3200 in some situations can be better or worse then in others, but is generally pretty good. ISO 6400 will only due in a pinch and you won’t be getting the best results from this camera, however for a social situation they are more then adequate, they would improve with a black and white conversion. at ISO 12800, vertical banding is very obvious and generally speaking images are unusable and very blotchy and soft with high amounts of color and pattern noise. These 12800 results are what you can expect from any camera when its sensor sensitivity is maxed out, however I will say that we have come a long way in terms of ISO performance and if your documenting a Cloverfield monster, or like trying to record someone committing a murder (Rear Window or Blowup, take your pick), or photographing the toppling of the Berlin Wall or something else momentous these 12800 results will be usable, but certainly not for any fine art print purposes.

Dynamic Range

The Leica T-Type’s new 16mp APS-C CMOS sensor is a clear improvement over the Leica X-Vario’s sensor, as you can see from the very nice dynamic range available in the Leica T-Type’s RAW files, in this file you can see that I brought back both the shadows and highlight’s using the recovery sliders in Adobe Photoshop CC Camera Raw to yield an image with very nice tonal qualities. The sky was seemingly blown out and highlight recovery was fully applied, and after a vibrance adjustment color was restored.

Leica T-Type with 23mm Summicron-T ~ 1/3200 – f/2.0 – ISO 100

In this next image, taken with the 23mm Summicron-T, we have a much harsher contrast between the dark and light areas being both almost completely black and blown out respectively. However, we can see that there is a large amount of recovery possible in the highlights, and while the shadows had less able to be recovered we were able to do a very decent job and be able to use a lot of this image without any imperfections.

I have specifically asked Leica reps if they are different sensors and they have all told me that the Leia T has a new sensor. Also if you look, the Leica X-Vario is listed as having a 16.1mp APS-C CMOS Sensor and the new Leica T is listed as having a 16.3mp APS-C CMOS sensor which would suggest that they are different sensors.

A disappointment! More a testament to audi design than a photographers camera. A body built around a mere 16 MB sony sensor, well why not go and buy a Sony a7. Sony and Fuji seem to be putting out what leica should be putting out at a median price range.